Thursday, August 26, 2010

Rapunzel through two different lenses























Paul Zelinsky

Lit.Scribbles has a post on Rapunzel where she argues that the fairy tale is mainly about lust. It involves characters who are all flawed and give in to their selfish urges, and in that respect, very human.

Yet Gypsy Thornton's article featured on Supernatural Fairy Tales contrasts Rapuzel with Cinderella. According to Gypsy, Cinderella is not about true love, but playing your cards right to rise in society, whereas Rapunzel is actually a story of true love.

How does one fairy tale get two treatments that seem totally opposite? I think both authors have vaild arguments that make perfect sense. It just goes to show that fairy tales are very malleable and there can be multiple good interpretations. Really, the nature of fairy tales is to be very stark-to only present basic facts and plots, of which the reader can ask questions and come to their own conclusions. Not that all fairy tale interpretations are equally valid, however...

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